I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIPeople have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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We don’t look at each other [in the car], but instead do so only when we want to. We’re allowed to look around without appearing rude. We have a big screen in front of us and side views.
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There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he’s so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I’m not impressed by any technicality.
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In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.
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I’m not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.
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I wasn’t searching for a common denominator – I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
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Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
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If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
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In my experience as a director, I think there is obviously something of the way men – maybe that’s a common point with Shirin – the way men see women in the film, and the way these two characters see each other.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.
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With the RED, I didn’t have this impression at all. I felt that it was as heavy as a film camera. Having this great crew, with the DP and his assistants, I found it making as much of an impression as a very big film camera.
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I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.
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I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I’m not the only one.
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I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI